With the VC MFA residency coming up, it made sense to rest and spend some quality down time with GLS last weekend.
After the Friday night season premier of "Monk," we watched the series premier of "Psych." It's about a fake psychic detective. The show was amusing and not a bad way to spend a post-"Monk" hour, but there's not much depth there (at least not yet).
The "Monk" premier had focused on an actor finding the heart of Monk's story, how the unsolved murder of our hero's wife had inspired him to solve other crimes, though it was never "enough" to begin really healing him. The heart of "Psych" in contrast seemed to be wanting to impress a disapproving cop father, which isn't uncompelling, but maybe suffers by comparison.
Beyond that, we mostly relaxed around the house. We picked up season one of "Fraiser" on DVD and watched a marathon of episodes on Saturday and Sunday. I'd forgotten how good it is. The writing is hysterical, and all of the characters shine, especially David Hyde Pierce's Niles and John Mahoney's Martin.
On Sunday morning, I wrapped graduation gifts and put together my recommended list of craft and reading resources for my VC workshop with JK (author interview). Monday and Tuesday morning were spent working on the lecture and handout, which I'll revisit again today.
Tuesday afternoon I reviewed my second pass pages on Tantalize (Candlewick, 2007). I'll go back over those one more time on Thursday before writing my editor.
Because my VC lecture wasn't finished and I'm leaving Saturday, I'll admit a few moments of panic when GLS mentioned that the package had arrived. But then everything came together in that magical way that it does when you have no choice but to focus like Batman.
This is the second-time through post production of the ARCs. It was a treat to read without the dreaded plague of ellipses! The new interior art element looks fabulous, and the minor logic glitch is fixed! It's reading smooth, too.
Over 50,000+ words, and I've so far noted the following--words to cut: "more;" "black and white;" words to add: "northern;" "our;" "the;" "on;" words to change: "redheads" to "brunettes;" "not so much" to "I hadn't bothered;" "the front doors" to "of the school;" "daring" to "eager." Punctuation notes: cut a stray close quote; change question mark to period; add exclamation point and period; lower case "it."
Basically, what happens is that any time there are even tiny text changes, they have ripple effects, especially in terms of repeated words or phrases moving to too close of proximity.
Also, I had envisioned my protagonist Quincie as a freckled blonde, though it's never mentioned one way or another in the book. The final cover art shows a freckled redhead, and suddenly, I realized there were three red-haired women working at Sanguini's, which, statistically speaking, is an awful lot for near south Austin. Consequently, minor characters Mercedes and Simone are getting an editorial dye job.
Spooky Links
Read the blogs of "Monk" characters--latest entries from Natalie, Dr. Kroger, and Captain Stottlemeyer.
The Eight Characters of Comedy by Greg Leitich Smith from GregLSBlog.
